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The extent of the rich–poor divide in attitudes to welfare varies across societies. Existing studies focus on the progressivity of the welfare system and macroeconomic conditions to explain cross-society variation. We shed light on another factor that we believe is key to understanding the variation: the public’s knowledge of the welfare state. We suggest that the prevalent ignorance of how welfare state institutions work dilutes the rich–poor divide over social spending, especially in emerging welfare states. We empirically illustrate our point using original survey data from South Korea, a country where previous studies repeatedly found little or no effect of economic class on welfare state attitudes. We reveal a strong income-based cleavage over social spending in a subset of the Korean population with more accurate knowledge of the welfare system. Our findings carry important implications for understanding and projecting welfare state politics in a broader set of emerging welfare states.

This study explores whether and under what conditions foreign aid can help improve the donor country's image in countries that did not receive aid. We identified a world heritage site restoration project, which is visible, localized, has no political strings attached, and deals with global public good, as a most-likely type of foreign aid that can generate this positive effect. In light of the literature suggesting that tensions with the target country undermine public diplomacy effectiveness, we expect the positive effect will be more pronounced in non-recipient countries with which the donor country has a more amicable relationship. To empirically investigate our argument, we field a survey experiment in a developed non-aid-recipient country, Australia. We provide information to the Australian public about an aid project to restore the Angkor Monument in Cambodia conducted either by China or South Korea. We find that information on Korea's aid to Cambodia improves the image of Korea and the willingness to cooperate with the Korean government among Australians. No such effect, however, is observed in the case of similar aid by China whose relations with Australia have been strained in multiple domains. Our findings have policy implications for donor countries seeking to utilize the soft power element of foreign aid as a public diplomacy tool.

Governments enact environmental regulations to compel firms to internalize pollution externalities. Critics contend that regulations encourage technological lock-ins and stifle innovation. Challenging this view, the Porter-Linde hypothesis suggests that appropriately designed regulations can spur innovation because (1) pollution reflects resource waste; (2) regulations focus firms' attention on waste; and (3) with regulation-induced focus, firms are incentivized to innovate to reduce waste. This article explores the regulation–innovation linkage in the context of voluntary regulations. The authors focus on ISO 14001, the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world. Examining a panel of 79 countries for the period 1996–2009, they find that country-level ISO 14001 participation is a significant predictor of a country's environmental patent applications, a standard proxy for innovation activity. The policy implication is that public managers should consider voluntary regulation's second-order effects on innovation, beyond their first-order effects on pollution and regulatory compliance.

Much scholarly attention has been given to the potentially disruptive distributional implications of new technologies in labor markets. Less explored is the way citizens as socially embedded individuals perceive and respond to technological transformation. This study fills this gap by exploring how welfare state institutions shape and are shaped by citizens’ perceptions of technological transformation. My analysis covering over 50 developed and developing countries finds that welfare state generosity is associated with a greater acceptance of technological change. I also provide evidence consistent with the expectation that labor market interventions of the welfare state have the potential to reduce the skill cleavage over technological transformation by mitigating the insecurity faced by the low-skilled. Additionally, citizens embracing technological transformation are more supportive of the welfare state than techno-skeptics are.

Over the past two decades, South Korea has increasingly engaged in cultural public diplomacy; however, empirical research on its effectiveness in advancing foreign policy interests is lacking. Existing studies focus on how cultural public diplomacy shapes Korea's image and the attractiveness of Korean products among foreign consumers without addressing the ultimate diplomatic objective of influencing the actions of foreign governments. This study fills this research gap by examining the impact of the King Sejong Institute (KSI), a government-funded cultural institution, on Korea's foreign policy pursuits worldwide. Analyzing data from 2005-2021 spanning 192 countries (84 with KSI), our study reveals that the presence of KSI leads to increased political alignment in voting on United National General Assembly resolutions and greater de jure economic integration between the Korean and host governments. These results suggest that KSI can serve as a strategic tool to foster amicable bilateral relations.

While South Korea has been an active player in cultural diplomacy, there is a dearth of research on how cultural diplomacy events should be designed to maximize their effectiveness. We fill this gap by investigating what affects audience satisfaction with Korea's cultural diplomacy events. We utilize opinion surveys conducted from 2018 to 2020 with close to 2,000 respondents at 12 official cultural events in nine countries celebrating the anniversary of diplomatic ties. We find that local cultural expert involvement in the design of the event is associated with greater satisfaction when the audience has a high familiarity with Korean culture. We also find that introducing intercultural elements to the event can help improve event satisfaction among audience members with relatively low intercultural competence. Our analysis also confirms that audience members satisfied with these events hold a more favorable perception of Korea. The findings have important implications for cultural diplomacy practitioners.

Since its democratization, South Korea has widened the population coverage of various social programs, yet the generosity of most programs remains shallow. Existing studies offer state/elite-centered explanations for this move toward a weak universalistic welfare state. I suggest that the move rather accurately reflects citizen attitudes as well: a majority of Koreans across economic classes support welfare state expansion, yet a large segment of the self-proclaimed supporters are unwilling to pay for the expansion. I argue that underlying such mixed attitudes is the perceived unfairness of the tax and transfer systems. More specifically, (1) the perception of unfair contribution vis-à-vis other taxpayers and (2) the perception of unfair fiscal exchange with the government significantly lower one's willingness to contribute to the welfare state. My analysis of a nation-wide survey lends support to my argument. My findings have important policy implications for the emerging economies where, despite a growing citizen demand for social protection, the fiscal support base for welfare state expansion is frail.

What determines how ASEAN is perceived by the citizens of its member states? Most studies on ASEAN take a state-centric and elite-oriented viewpoint. We improve on this by bringing the people of ASEAN into the center of the analysis. Considering lessons from the European Union’s internal legitimacy crisis, we develop hypotheses on how skill-based economic interests, sociocultural beliefs, and assessments of national context shape people’s attitude to ASEAN. Our hypotheses are tested using the latest data from the Asian Barometer Survey, covering eight of the 10 ASEAN countries. We find that citizen confidence in domestic governance and a positive assessment of major extra-regional powers are associated with a closer identification with ASEAN. Our analysis also identifies age and gender cleavages. ASEAN affinity is higher among older rather than younger and male rather than female respondents. Our findings have important policy implications for the proponents of ASEAN.

What determines how ASEAN is perceived by the citizens of its member states? Most studies on ASEAN take a state-centric and elite-oriented viewpoint. We improve on this by bringing the people of ASEAN into the center of the analysis. Considering lessons from the European Union’s internal legitimacy crisis, we develop hypotheses on how skill-based economic interests, sociocultural beliefs, and assessments of national context shape people’s attitude to ASEAN. Our hypotheses are tested using the latest data from the Asian Barometer Survey, covering eight of the 10 ASEAN countries. We find that citizen confidence in domestic governance and a positive assessment of major extra-regional powers are associated with a closer identification with ASEAN. Our analysis also identifies age and gender cleavages. ASEAN affinity is higher among older rather than younger and male rather than female respondents. Our findings have important policy implications for the proponents of ASEAN.

Over the past two decades, South Korea has increasingly engaged in cultural public diplomacy; however, empirical research on its effectiveness in advancing foreign policy interests is lacking. Existing studies focus on how cultural public diplomacy shapes Korea's image and the attractiveness of Korean products among foreign consumers without addressing the ultimate diplomatic objective of influencing the actions of foreign governments. This study fills this research gap by examining the impact of the King Sejong Institute (KSI), a govemment-funded cultural institution, on Korea's foreign policy pursuits worldwide. Analyzing data from 2005-2021 spanning 192 countries (84 with KSI), our study reveals that the presence of KSI leads to increased political alignment in voting on United National General Assembly resolutions and greater de jure economic integration between the Korean and host governments. These results suggest that KSI can serve as a strategic tool to foster amicable bilateral relations.